Collections

Cartographic History Collections

The Virginia Garrett Cartographic History Library, established in 1978, includes thousands of maps and atlases, dating from 1493 to the present, and features works of noted cartographers such as Martin Waldseemüller, Abraham Ortelius, Willem and Joann Blaeu, Vincenzo Coronelli, Guillaume DeL’isle, and Alexander von Humboldt. Special Collections continues to acquire maps, books, and atlases relating to the history of cartography with special emphasis upon Texas and North American exploration and settlement.

The Digital Collections feature materials drawn from the wealth and diversity of items held by the Libraries in addition to exhibits of collaborations with UTA faculty and students. Using state-of-the-art scanning technology, we are dedicated to preserving, providing access to, and promoting the use of the unique objects of the Libraries, faculty, and students while also including born-digital resources.

Federal Government Publications

Research Federal Depository Library program publications including: US Census and demographic information, statistical data, and documents pertaining to politics, law, environment, business, and history.

Historical Manuscripts Collections

The historical manuscripts collections focus primarily on 19th and 20th century Texas and Mexican history and the U.S. War with Mexico. They are primarily personal papers, family collections, and organizational records. In addition, special emphasis is on materials from the North Texas area and surrounding counties as well as counties once part of the Robertson Colony, a 19th century empresario venture that brought U.S. immigrants to Texas.

Maps & Atlases Collection

The Library’s Maps & Atlases Collection contains a wide variety of folded and sheet maps as well as bound atlases. Map and atlas types include: topographic, geographic, world/national/state/local, political, commercial, historical, and thematic. The collection also includes maps and atlases that display specific information related to topics such as natural resources, war, culture, language, demographics, and more.

Microform Collections

As a member of the Texas State Library's Regional Historical Resource Depository (RHRD), Special Collections holds county records on microfilm for specific Texas counties (find our county holdings).

Microform Special Collections

The microform holdings (microfilm and microfiche) in Special Collections include historical records for Texas cities and counties, historical Texas labor organizations’ newspapers and journals, and municipal, ecclesiastical, notary, and civil records spanning nearly four centuries of the history of Yucatan and Honduras.

Multicultural Collection

The Multicultural Collection contains material about African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans in the Southwest, specifically Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. Works in the collection include contributions to the culture of each minority group and emphasis on their contemporary issues. The collection currently includes circulating books and some reference material, and is integrated into the larger library collection.

Photographs and Graphics

Special Collections documents the history of the North Texas region visually in its millions of negatives, thousands of prints and slides, hundreds of glass plate negatives, and a selection of daguerreotypes. Notable image collections are the photo archives of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and of commercial photographers W.D. Smith, Jack White, Squire Haskins, and Basil Clemons. The collections of J.W. Dunlop and the Arlington Citizen-Journal focus on Arlington history.